Apple Inc. (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook Speaks Out Against Einhorn Lawsuit

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will officially respond to David Einhorn’s lawsuit against it tomorrow, but today when CEO Tim Cook spoke at a Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) tech conference, we got a little bit of a preview. At the very least, we now know what Cook himself thinks.

Einhorn has been trying to talk Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) into issuing preferred for months, and when his private requests went unanswered, he took the issue public and filed a lawsuit against the company, saying that instead of sitting on a pile of cash, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) should return some of that money to investors.

Today at the Goldman Sachs conference, Cook called Einhorn’s lawsuit “a silly sideshow” and said that it was a waste of time and money. He said contrary to Einhorn’s claim that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has Depression-era mindset, the company had about $10 billion in capital expenditures last year. Cook also said Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will likely spend about the same amount of money on retail store investments, research and development and other capital expenditures this year.

Cook also said that he and the rest of the company’s management team and executives are holding discussions about how to return cash to investors and that they will consider all proposals, even the strong suggestions by Einhorn that Apple should issue preferred stock.

Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital hedge fund is suing Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in an attempt to block Proposal #2, one of the proposal’s that’s up for a shareholder vote later this month. Einhorn claims that the proposal will actually ban the issuance of preferred stock forever, but Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) claims that it would simply give shareholders the right to vote on the issuance of preferred stock.